The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-05-31

The western American Species and Its
Possible Future Development.
Charles D. Warner in Harper's.

The Western Americas Species and Hts
Possible Future Development.
Charles ID. Warner in Harpers-
Out somewhere on the Santa Fe route,
where the desert of one day was like
the desert of the day before and the
Pullman car rolls and swings over the
wide waste beneath the blue sky day af-
ter day, under its black flag of smoke,
i'm the early gray of morning, when the
men were waiting their turns at the
ablution bowls, slip of boy, perhaps
aged seven, stood balancing himself on
his little legs, clad in knickerbockers,
biding his time, with all the nonchal-
ance of an old campaigner. Glow did
you sleep, cap" asked well-meaning
elderly gentleman '.Wen, thank you"
was the dignified response, las always
do on sleeping car" Always does?
Great horrors, Hardly out of his swad-
ding clothes, and yet he always sleeps
well in sleeper. Was he born on
wheels? was he Graded i'm Pullman.
He has always been in motion, proba-
bly,: he was started at thirty miles an
hour, no doubt, this marvellous boy of
new era. He was not 30. - in a house at
rest. but the locomotive snatched him
along and a roar before his eyes were
fairly open, and he was rocked in a
section" and his first sensation of life
was that of moving rapidly over vast
along canyons.
The effort of quick and easy lOcomo-
ton on character may have been noted
before but it seems that here is the pro-
duction of a new sort of man the direct
product of our IA lway era. 1t is not
| simply that this boy is mature, but he
| must bea different and nobler sort OF
] boy than one born, say at home or on a
| canal-boat; for whether he was born on
| the rail or not, he belongs to the rail-
way system of civilization. Before he
| gets into trousers he is old in experience,
| and he has is dcounted many of the
novelties that usually break gradually
| n the pilgrim i'm this world.
| He belongs to the new expansive race
| that must live in motion. whose proper
home is the Pullman. which will proba-
| bly, be improved i'm time into a dustless,
| sweet smelling, well aired bedroom, and
| whose domestic life will be on the wing,
| so to speak. The Interstate Commerce
bill will pass him along without friction,
| from end to end of the Union, and per
/ haps a uniform divorce law will enable
him to change his marital relations at
any place where he happens to- dine.
This promising lad II only Il faint lhtl-
/ nation of what we are all coming to
when we fully acquire the freedom of
i the continent, and come into that ex-
pansiveness of feeling and of language
| which characterizes the great West 1t
is burst of joyous exuberance that
comes from the sense of an illinitable
| horizon. 1t showed itself in the tender
| words of a local newspaper at Bowie,
| Arizona, on the death of n beloved citi-
zen: death loves a shining mark.
and she hit a dandy when she turned
loose on Jim" And also in the closing
| words of a New Mexico obituary, which
the Kansas Magazine quotes: Her
tired spirit was released from the pain
racking body and scared aloft to eternal
glory at 4:30, Denver time" We die, as
it were, in motion, as we sleep, and there
is nowhere any boundary to our expan-
sion. Perhaps we shall never again
know any rest as we now understand
the term-rest being only change of mo-
tion-and We shall not be able to sleep
except on the cars, and whether we die
by Denver time or by the Goth meridian,
we shall only change our time Blessed
he this slip of boy who is a man before
zine is an infant,aia teaches ID what rapid
transit can do for our r,,sa,- The only
: thing that can possibly hinder us in on
{ progress will be second Childhood; w
4 | have abolished the first.